Parliamentary Secretary Franco Mercieca has dismissed accusations levelled at him by fellow eye surgeon Thomas Fenech as a “personal crusade” that did nothing to improve the well-being of patients.

But while the Labour MP derided his colleague’s accusations as petty, he did not directly address them, despite being given the opportunity to do so by The Times.

Mr Fenech has accused Mr Mercieca of falsely exaggerating his medical expertise to justify a prime ministerial waiver allowing him to continue his private, and public, surgical work.

According to Mr Fenech, the Gozitan MP was also the only ophthalmologist at Mater Dei Hospital who had an interest in ensuring corneal surgery equipment was only available privately, since he was the only eye surgeon there to make use of this machinery privately.

The Times asked Mr Mercieca whether he cared to rebut any of those claims, as well as what he made of Mr Fenech’s threat to report him to the Medical Council for having breached medical ethics.

“My duty is to serve, not to engage in an unnecessary, public tit-for-tat with a fellow respected colleague,” a conciliatory Mr Mercieca wrote in reply.

A spokesman for Mr Mercieca challenged Mr Fenech to immediately begin negotiating with the Health Ministry to secure ophthalmological investment that was “severely lacking during these last years”.

Mr Fenech chairs the hospital’s ophthalmology department as well as the Maltese Association of Ophthalmologists. 

A spokesman at the Office of the Prime Minister denied that the offer of a waiver had anything to do with Mr Mercieca accepting the post of parliamentary secretary, and argued that the Government was seeking to safeguard patients’ best interests.

A spokesman for Mr Mercieca declined to comment any further.